Fragments of a Self Portrait1974

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Photographed in black-and-white on Sony Portapak videotape, Andrea Callard used one of the earliest portable video devices to capture herself ascending the stairs to her Lispenard Street studio in Downtown New York. She is wearing casts on both of her feet, pounding each stair with great effort, the once ubiquitous scratch and wobble of videotape distinguishing this piece from the work of her contemporaries using film. When she reaches the top, she removes the casts, revealing the artist's bare, naked feet, suggesting that perhaps these cocoons must be shed before she can enter the sacred space of her studio. - Stela Jelincic